


Getting A Head

by MiladyDragon



Series: Armageddon-Verse [11]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Armageddon-Verse, Comedy Decapitation, Crack, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2013-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-28 13:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiladyDragon/pseuds/MiladyDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War should really pay attention to what he's doing when on a battleground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting A Head

**Author's Note:**

> More Armageddon-Verse! I should have been working on other things, but this just hit me and I had to write it. Blame it on my new love, "Sleepy Hollow". Well, at least the decapitation part.

It really was War’s fault.

Certainly, a tour of a battleground could often be a nice night out for the Avatar of Death, but Ianto Jones also had Angels who would usually handle something this…wimpy.  Yes, that was the only way he could describe the battle that had taken place in the meadow just hours before, because it really hadn’t been much of anything.  A minor skirmish between warlords only, something that was usually very far below Death’s attention as an ant under a boot. 

But there he was, trolling a field amid dead and dying bodies – and yes, Ianto did help those along who were suffering, because he disliked that sort of thing on general principle – looking for the one thing that shouldn’t have been lost in the first place.

At least he wasn’t alone.  Apocalypse had also asked Famine and Pestilence to help out, and from the cursing Owen was doing he felt pretty much like Ianto did…that John had really screwed things up this time, and it was a very unpleasant sort of screwing.  Not the sort he’d rather be doing with Jack in that moment, that was for sure.

Ianto would, in fact, be cursing and ranting much like Pestilence was, but he did have a certain reputation to uphold.  He did glance down at the mixture of mud and blood under his highly polished shoes, glad that he didn’t have to actually walk in that muck.

“Stupid git,” Owen muttered as they moved through the blood-stained grass.  “It was a rookie mistake, more like something Davidson would pull.”

“Oi!” Famine exclaimed, pointing the shrivelled cornstalk, the sign of his office, at Pestilence with the obvious meaning to use it on his fellow Horseman.  “Even I know you don’t go corporeal in the middle of a flipping crowd, especially a crowd of armed soldiers!”

Ianto rolled his eyes.  “Gentlemen – and I use that term loosely – the sooner you stop sniping at each other the sooner we can get back to whatever it was we had planned for today before John decided to be an idiot.”

He sighed.  This was certainly not what he’d planned for the day.  With an Armageddon scheduled for five days from now, he and Jack had wanted to take a bit of time for themselves before things went crazy as they tended to do during Armageddons. 

Of course, War had blown those plans out of the water with a single, well-placed axe stroke. 

Ianto sensed someone still alive on the field, and he made a slight detour toward it.  One of the soldiers hadn’t succumbed to his wounds yet, and just as Death was about to Reap the man’s soul, he noticed an object peeking out of a mass of tall grass that had, somehow, escaped the trample of battle. 

“Owen!  Andy!” he called out as he casually used his scythe on the helpless and dying man and sending his soul to wherever it was meant to go.  “I’ve found it.”

 

*********

 

There was something slightly incongruous with the sight of Apocalypse and War sitting at the main meeting table.  Usually it wouldn’t be so strange, with John sprawled out in his usual chair, the sword of his office carved into the back, looking for all the world like he was completely bored with things and was about to doze off.

Well, except for his complete lack of head.

Ianto made his way around the table, carrying the bundle he’d wrapped up in an attempt to keep people from freaking out…or much more likely spreading more rumours than what usually circled about the Armageddon Department.  Although, to be honest, if the employees thought that Death had finally Reaped War…well, that would actually enhance his reputation, wouldn’t it?

Hm…maybe he should get Donna on that.  After all, she would know who would be the best to start such a rumour with. 

His PA was just awesome like that.

“Hart is such an arse,” Owen grumbled.  He, in fact, had not stopped grumbling from the moment Jack had informed them of their impromptu ‘treasure’ hunt. 

Of course the body in the chair next to Jack’s didn’t move; after all, it didn’t have any ears to hear with or a mouth to call Pestilence every name in the book with.

Death set his bundle down on the table, whipping the cloth away with a flourish. 

“That is seriously disturbing,” Famine muttered.

“How do you think I feel?” John’s head spoke, its eyes rolling…which looked far too strange for actual description.

“You’re the one who decided running around a warzone corporeal was a really good idea,’ Jack said, and it was obvious to Ianto that his lover was trying really hard not to laugh.

“Yeah, yeah,” War admitted.  “I just got a bit excited, okay?  That one berserker was a treasure, I tell you!  It was like watching a living work of art on the battlefield, with the way he swung that axe.  Being gorgeous too didn’t hurt, and I couldn’t help myself.”

“And then, when you got too close, you were decapitated.”

Ianto smirked.  “It could have been worse…it could have been the other head he was actually thinking with at the time.  Which, being John, should have been much more likely.”

“You just had to go there,” Owen moaned.   

“Of course I did.”  What else did Pestilence expect of him?

“What exactly is the first rule of being a Horseman?” Jack prompted.

“Never walk in on you and Death during sexytimes,” Andy piped up.

“Never drink the coffee in the fourth floor breakroom,” Owen put in.

“Don’t piss off Apocalypse by hacking into the office CCTV and watching him and Death go at it like rabbits,” War’s head suggested.

Jack sighed, and Ianto felt his lover’s eyes on him.  “Do you have anything to add?” he asked acerbically.

Ianto shrugged.  “Not at all.  Those are all good rules to live by.”  He’d had the coffee in the fourth floor breakroom, and it was vile.  The other rules were quite self-explanatory.

Apocalypse looked as if he wanted to face plant into the table.  “No…the first rule of being a Horseman is never go corporeal while working.”  He suddenly went contemplative.  “Although, you’re right…those others are actually pretty good rules.”  Jack shook his head.  “Anyway, the reason we don’t show ourselves while working is to avoid any sort of panic, like the kind that leads one of us who shall remain nameless into losing his head…quite literally.”

“C’mon,” the head that was John Hart wheedled, “you can’t tell me you never got completely carried away in the heat of the moment.”

“No I can’t,” Jack conceded, “but at least I never got my neck in the way of a battle-axe.”

The head looked chagrined.  “Okay, yeah…that was a bit of a mistake.”

“It’s just a damned good thing you lot are practically impossible to kill,” Apocalypse said. 

“Unless your actions warrant the scythe,” Death said in his best sepulchre tones.  He spun the blade of said scythe quite gracefully in order to make his point.

Jack leered at him.  “Have I been bad?  Do I ‘warrant’ the scythe?”

“Oh, gross!” Owen moaned.  “Is there anything you won’t use as a sex toy, Harkness?”

Their boss considered, and then grinned.  “Nope, can’t think of a thing.”

“And you wonder why I hacked the CCTV,” Hart’s head said wistfully.

No, Ianto didn’t wonder at all.  Nor did he admit that he’d bribed Toshiko with the really good coffee to ‘let’ Hart get into the system and get an eyeful before ‘catching’ him in the act that one time.

Death loved being a tease, even if he really wasn’t one to share.

“Okay,” Apocalypse said, standing.  “War has an appointment to get his head stitched back on –“

Andy made a gagging noise at that.

“– while the rest of you have duties to get back to.  And I don’t want a repeat of this ever again.  Either head; understood?”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Owen muttered.  “I’m not about to get caught out like that.”

“Then I don’t have to remind you of the time you were discovered with that farmer’s daughter?” Ianto asked innocently.  “I do believe they were digging buckshot out of places there should never be such a thing –“

“Shut it, Dead Boy,” Owen snapped. 

Ianto simply gave him his best Deaths’ Head smile…which, after the fact, seemed like a pun waiting to happen in this circumstance.

Jack nudged War’s body, and it stood, holding out an arm.  Apocalypse gently tucked the head under the outstretched arm, so that John could actually see where his body was going.  Ianto barely held back a snort at the sight, making a mental reminder to ask Toshiko for stills of this, for blackmail material and to grease things through the office rumour mill.

“You’re really gonna make me take the Walk of Shame, aren’t you?”  John moaned.

“Not the kind of shame you’re used to,” Jack chuckled. 

“Yeah, not the fun kind.”  The head pouted. 

“Get moving.”  Apocalypse prodded War along and out of the room, the disembodied head complaining all the way.

“You know,” Death mused, “as many times as I’ve threatened to Reap him, I feel surprisingly cheated.”

“Although it really is funny,” Famine remarked. 

“Yeah,” Pestilence commented, grinning.

Ianto had to agree.  He couldn’t wait to get the rumours started.

Then he wondered if he couldn’t get some sort of betting pool out of it.  Yes, he’d have to discuss that with Donna…and he smiled.  This was very funny indeed.


End file.
